LOS ANGELES – With two senior cornerbacks gone from last year’s Bruins secondary – a group that had already struggled at times, in spite of its experience – UCLA defensive backs coach Demetrice Martin knew what he was in for this season, coaching one of the team’s most inexperienced groups.

Then came a curveball. Tevin McDonald, the Bruins’ most experienced returning safety, was kicked off the team for a violation of team rules.

That left safeties Randall Goforth and Dietrich Riley to take the lion’s share of reps on the back end, with Ishmael Adams and Anthony Jefferson handling first-team duties at corner. Combined, the makeshift unit has just 10 starts total – all of which come from Goforth and Riley.

But through 11 spring practices, UCLA’s most inexperienced unit has surpassed those meager expectations. Jefferson has emerged as a sure-fire leader to start at one corner spot, making multiple fantastic defensive plays throughout the spring. UCLA coach Jim Mora also listed Adams as one of the camp’s best players. And Goforth, who Martin challenges on a daily basis to be more of a leader, has steadily improved throughout camp.

“We were going to be young, even if we get a guy that doesn’t get kicked off the team,” Martin said. “We’re still young anyway. We already knew that going into it; it just so happened that one of the guys we were thinking about counting on is not here.”

“It’s a blow losing Tevin McDonald and the senior corners,” Goforth added, “but this year, we’ve got enough talent to regain where we need to be.”

With a front seven that should excel at getting to the quarterback, a capable secondary is critically important. And while the existing group has overachieved some during the spring, Martin is relieved that the Bruins’ four freshmen defensive backs – Priest Willis, Tahaan Goodman, Johnny Johnson, and Tyler Foreman – will come as reinforcements in the fall.

That group could push the current one for starting spots. Martin sees Willis and Johnson as corners and Goodman and Foreman as safeties, but the best defensive backs will play, no matter the position, Martin said.

“Like I tell the group we’re working with now, all four of (the freshmen) could be starting, if they let it happen,” Martin said. “It’s on them to go out and compete. The cream will rise to the top. They’ll tell us who should be on the field playing.”

SPRING GAME CHANGES

As injuries have piled up, forcing UCLA to work with a pretty shallow group at many positions this spring, the Bruins’ spring game this Saturday might not be the “game” that fans expected to see.

UCLA coach Jim Mora had a new name for Saturday’s event, which he promises will be “a lot more fan interactive” than last year’s 100-play scrimmage: the “Spring Spectacular”.

“With our dwindling numbers,” Mora said, “what we’re going to do, rather than have a 100-play game, we’re going to come out, and we’re going to do our warm-up, then we’re going to come out of the tunnel and have a little Pride Alley for the fans that are there. We’re going to do some 1-on-1s, some pass-rush, some red zone 7-on-7, then we’re going to have two halves of scrimmage and move the ball. Instead of having 100 plays, we’ll probably have 60 plays.”

The event may be less of a game, per se, and more of an “event”, as fans will take part in on-field contests for prizes, but Mora wasn’t tempering his expectations of how many fans he hopes will attend. After hearing that Kentucky’s spring football games attracted 51,000 fans, Mora said on Saturday that his goal was 51,001.

Ryan Kartje is a sports features reporter, with a special focus on the NFL and college sports. He has worked for the Orange County Register since 2012, when he was hired as UCLA beat writer. His enterprise work on the rise and fall of the daily fantasy sports industry (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/industry-689093-fantasy-daily.html) was honored in 2015 with an Associated Press Sports Editors’ enterprise award in the highest circulation category. His writing has also been honored by the Football Writers Association of America and the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Ryan worked for the Bloomington (Ind.) Herald-Times and Fox Sports Wisconsin, before moving out west to live by the beach and eat copious amounts of burritos.

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